Luisa was a testament to the old adage that monstrosity is only skin deep. To look at her skeletal frame, beard of tentacles, and unearthly pink eyes, you might assume Luisa was the top of the food chain at Baudouin Academy. But fear is an unstable sort of power. And one need only convince a monster they haven’t any power to take it.

Sitting alone at lunch, Luisa’s tentacles were an ombre of unearthly orange, coated with a thick layer of Cheetos cheese dust. Luisa picked up the neon morsels with her tentacles before depositing them into her mouth in a xylophonic move. Her mother would have shuddered to watch Luisa lick her tentacles one by one.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you junk food is bad for your skin?” Bianca stood opposite Luisa, the darting eyes and mutterings of the fey populace in full display behind her.

With her spritely blue eyes and meticulously curated ensemble, Bianca was widely considered to be the hottest fey in school, if you bought into fey-normative beauty standards. A stark contrast to Luisa’s imposing size and frizzy mane of black hair, which she kept slicked back into a thick braid that fell past her waist.

“Gross,” Bianca said.

“Junk food is by far the best human invention to date, Bianca. We must celebrate the accomplishment of their little minds.”

“I’m just saying, you could totes have worms,” Bianca said. A hush that fell over the cafeteria as creatures from all walks of folklore turned around in their seats to watch the Icelandic house elf verbally challenge the school’s first and only Cthulhu. The last person who had referenced worms in Luisa’s presence had suffered the temporary loss of his right arm in what the Administration had deemed an “unfortunate accident,” seeing as they were able to grow it back.

Luisa’s pink eyes gleamed as she surged forward over the table in a blur to brush the tips of Bianca’s bottle-blond hair with her tentacles. By the time Bianca yelped and jumped back, Luisa had already returned to her seat with little more than a whoosh. Bianca’s peevishness looked cartoonish as she tried to saunter away without looking terrified.

Fey were surprisingly easy to intimidate when you’re part of a genus referred to as the “Immortal Gods.” But the truth was that Luisa secretly wished for a mob bearing pitchforks. High school was dreadfully boring and she needed the exercise.

Luisa continued to read her book and only raised her gaze at the sound of a chair scraping across the floor. The handsome loner with the brooding brown eyes sat across from her. A constant topic of conversation, especially among the female population, all the afterschool covens had cast their best love spells and slipped their most potent potions into his drinks to no avail. No one knew anything about him, not even his genus, granting him a tenuous social status hinged on mystery.

“Bullies are the worst,” he offered.

“It is the nature of fey. They try to cover their true face,” Luisa pointed out, her tentacles enveloping a CapriSun to wash down the Cheetos.

“Like Dorian Grey?” motioning to her book. Luisa nodded her head and sat back. “Luisa, right?” he asked. One tentacle twitching with suspicion, she nodded again. “I’m Frank.” She’d sat alone at lunch since she came to Baudouin. Truth be told, she liked it better that way. Those cackling witches never talked about anything but getting their wandas waxed. As far as Luisa was concerned that kind of thing just led to screeching and possibly biting.

“So tell me the lowdown on this place,” Frank said.

Luisa pondered the request before replying, “Everyone here knows to keep a distance from me. Except you.”

“Bianca just came right at you.”

“Meanness is a kind of distance. Besides, she cast a protection spell right before, I could taste it on her.”

“I can smell a spell on you. Can’t quite place it though, an enchantment maybe ...”

Luisa sniffed the air and the tips of her tentacles vibrated. There weren’t many fey at Baudouin who could smell the coming ragnagar on her. Most other creatures registered her oncoming puberty as perfume, but to Luisa it smelled of rot, similar to the stink of certain powerful enchantments. It was a rare creature indeed that could suss out a spell with his nose. “What manner of beast are you?”

Frank leaned forward, “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Luisa tilted her head to the side and her beard of tentacles swung with her. “You are either very brave or very stupid.”

“Can’t I be both?”

Luisa conceded, “They usually are.”

“Well, I’ve met Cthulhu before.”

The story went that Cthulhu had all but vanished from the world, gone into hiding after the release of the Lovecraft Articles. While the Cthulhu had disappeared entirely from the world, the Cthulha had only disappeared into their own glamours, as Luisa’s mother had, becoming ghosts in the world. Their unique ability to hide in plain sight meant they had refused to follow the Cthulhu into hiding, a fissure the Cthulhu referred to as a civil war, but the Cthulha remembered as a revolution. The ability to glamour their appearance into something more socially acceptable only emerged when Cthulha girls began puberty. Any Chthulhu sightings in the last 100 years were limited to pre-ragnagar Cthulha or those Cthulha without a handle on their glamour abilities.

“Stupid it is.” Luisa eyed him with suspicion. “The Cthulha are all that is left.”

The bell rang and Frank slunk off with a shrug.

*     *     *
“Have you seen this?” Frank tossed a notebook on the counter next to Luisa in third-period Biology.

Luisa peered at the spotted black notebook before continuing to examine the specimen splayed out in front of her like a horror show Tinkerbell. “Are the Fey protesting this unit of Anatomy again?” Every year some group of fey protested the fairy dissection unit, despite the descendants being nothing more than pests.

“No, Bianca put together a petition to get the most dangerous creatures expelled, namely you. Her committee is called Fey for the Equitable Treatment of Gentle Folk.”

“Ugh, petition, pitchfork, they’re all the same, weapons of mass fear.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“It matters not to me. Bianca is an idiot, that is punishment enough.” Luisa flittered her tentacles at him as she sliced an incision down the torso of the preserved fairy specimen.

“What if they kick you out?” Frank’s eyes grew anime big.

Scoffing, Luisa said, “You say that like she has that power. You give her far too much deference.”

Frank snapped his fingers before pulling two dollars out of his back pocket, “That’s a two-dollar word if I ever heard one.”

Snatching at the cash with the snap of a tentacle while her hands remained engaged in science, she said, “You should up the rate. I know many words and like money.”

“So, really, what are you going to do?” Frank said, leaning forward to prop his head up with his hand.

“Nothing.” Luisa looked into the microscope positioned to the right of her dissection specimen.

“Nothing? Big, bad Cthulhu and you do nothing?”

“Cthulha, dumbass, and I will not wage war over a tiny mind such as Bianca. She has no real power. This is all pomp and circumstance.”

“Cthulha?” he said with a twinkle in his eye that looked like he was baiting her.

The Cthulha had been largely left out of their own history, which had led to the common misconception that Cthulhu was just one gnarly guy with a reputation for being heartless, angry and, well, immortal. Instead of brooding about being made invisible, the Cthulha leaned in. Not many creatures can claim a bloodless coup that pulled them out from under the yoke of oppression by effectively going into hiding in plain sight. But, despite gaining a kind of independence, the widespread erasure of the contributions of the Cthulha to the race, biological and otherwise, had been calculated, effective, and lasting.

“As in the feminine?” Buzzing at him, Luisa continued, “Now go away. Your presence is causing consternation.”

“I’m out of dollars.”

“Then you may start a tab,” Luisa said, turning back to her biology specimen.

*     *     *
Frank’s continued attentions sent Luisa looking in the basement student files to discover the mystery of his origins. Not only did Frank seem to know far more of Luisa than your average fey folk, he fascinated Luisa in a way that she had never experienced before. She longed for the chase and, yet, didn’t want to eat him.

Luisa shook her tentacles, brushing the thought to the side. After she plugged into the mainframe with an ill-gotten passcode that may have involved an AV sprite and certain threats, Luisa discovered that Frank had no file.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” Luisa murmured.

“What’s curious?” a voice said behind her.

Bianca stood there in all her dainty Elvin glory. She peered around Luisa’s outstretched tentacles at the screen. Bianca smirked, “You aren’t the first student to look for an angle in Frank’s file, but you are the last I expected.”

“This is not what you think,” Luisa started.

“Uh huh, sure it isn’t. That record,” Bianca said, propping herself up on the desk next to the console, “was hexed out of existence. Even the most powerful Uterati magicks couldn’t bring it back.”

Luisa shook her head with a swing of her tentacles. “Uterati?” Luisa knew a great many ancient secrets, but had never heard of that fey.

Bianca rolled her eyes. “The Uterati? The most powerful witches in human history? Keepers of the secret of true female power? None of this ringing a bell?” Bianca spoke so often with inflection that it was sometimes hard to tell whether she was asking an actual question. “Big bad war sent the planet into an extinction-level event, which led to monkey era that we now currently live in? The one the humans think was a meteorite?”

Luisa shook her head.

Bianca grinned and dove in. “Legend goes, an ancient war between the sexes ended in a truce, but boys being boys, they did not honor the treaty. There was a magical loophole written in, of course, a way for women to counteract that inevitability, releasing us from our slavery. Some mythical spell lost to the ages. The Legend of Having It All. Diehards are still searching for it.”

“Sounds like fairytale hobblity-gosh, just some BS to make women feel big when they are small.”

Bianca shrugged. “The Uterati are known for their counter hexes on men. Some of the most powerful in the war of the sexes. My aunt was a member until they kicked her out for marrying a senator.”

“Why would that be cause for expulsion?”

“They have this whole female empowerment code. Male establishment is a big no no. I was going to join as my extracurricular until I discovered that little morsel and the kink it would put in my social life.”

“Yes, what girl in her right mind would choose powerful, tyrannical witches over the romantic charms of a high school nymph?”

Bianca rolled her eyes. “All I’m saying is better sorceresses than you have tried and failed to find an angle on our dear boy Frankie.” Bianca hopped down off the desk and started gliding away toward the stairwell. “Besides, it’s a waste of time. I hear Frank has a worm phobia.”

Luisa growled, sending Bianca scurrying to the exit.

*     *     *
Luisa was given free reign over an unused corner of school property. Given her Cthulhic tendency to tear off appendages, the other students were not allowed in that corner. That left Luisa to stretch out her wings without fear of being seen.

On this day, Luisa was practicing her agility. She had magicked 3-foot-wide hoops 30 feet above ground to practice her transitions from ground to air. It required precise timing to make it through the hoops, as her wingspan was close to 15 feet. She managed a few runs before she heard someone clapping. She spun around in the air and dove toward the sound, landing square on the chest of one Handsome Frank, knocking him onto his back, her wings outstretched over him like a yawning bat.

“It’s true then? Beauty does drain the brain straight out your ears. Should I call you Feeble Francis?”

“Beauty?” Frank grinned.

The tips of Luisa’s tentacles blushed as she flapped her wings and landed a few feet from Frank’s prostrate figure. “I could have taken your head off.”

“Yeah, Jesse told me that story about his arm. Ouch.”

“He assaults me and somehow I’m the monster? Weep not for that cretin. I would have ended him if I didn’t think his future would be punishment enough.”

“What about you, Sibyl? Where does your future take you? A picket fence, a bunch of tentacles to feed?”

She flicked her wings in unison with her tentacles before she folded them up, the tips brushing the ground behind her. “Cthulhu children are a nightmare. I’d sooner shove hot coals up my own ass.”

“Charming.”

Luisa’s head snapped around and her wings burst away from her body. She shot into the air and landed on the other side of the clearing, slipping into her trench coat in one deft movement, her tentacles turning pink as Bianca emerged from the tree line. Luisa got enough grief about her tentacles and wasn’t keen on adding bat to the list.

“Hi, Frank. How’d you end up in the dark zone? Didn’t you see the signs?” Bianca said, sauntering across the clearing. In an era where school officials policed what girls wore, Bianca somehow still managed to always look like she was one short breeze away from London and France. Luisa, on the other hand, was born in elastic waistbands.

“Dark zone?” Frank inquired.

“Yeah, Headmaster Morris put a hex on this part of campus to keep out satellite surveillance,” Bianca pointed to the sky.

“Morris really wants to keep Luisa secret,” Frank said, sounding impressed. Bianca followed his gaze toward Luisa and Luisa felt a hot sensation in the tips of her tentacles that she’d never quite felt before. It was like anger, but when she was angry her chest heaved and she felt powerful. This made her want to dig her toe in the dirt and write poetry.

“You came here on purpose?” Bianca said, the revelation stunning her.

“Bianca, not everyone likes white bread and ham,” Luisa pointed out.

“Are you calling me a pig? You’re the beast. It’s hilarious you even think you have a chance with our dear fey Frankie here. Did you know I found her breaking into the confidential files looking for angle on you?” Bianca said, her malicious gaze focused on Luisa.

Frank raised his eyebrows before turning to Luisa with a grin. “Checking up on me?”

“No other fey at this school can taste a spell on the air, a skill rumored to have died with the ancients.”

“Oh, they aren’t dead, my dear Luisa, merely underground,” Frank said with a devilish wink that left Bianca’s jaw gaping.

“Ew, gross,” Bianca said after her look of shock subsided.

“The Cthulha are notorious for the magic of their mating rituals,” Frank said playfully. “Someday soon Luisa will be the most sought-after girl at school.”

“As if,” Bianca stiffened. “Maybe for freaks with a worm fetish.”

As Luisa’s proclivity for dismemberment can attest, Cthulha have a limited range of patience. Even without the assistance of her wings Luisa moved at speeds incapable of being seen by eye or camera. By the time Bianca opened her mouth to scream, it was too late. Luisa squeezed Bianca’s jaw to a whimpering yelp and a flash of invisibility from the terrified house elf. “Before you insult my ancestors again, you would be wise to remember that if I wanted to tear you limb from limb, there would be no one within a thousand miles who could stop me.”

Luisa released the shocked girl, who fell back before scampering away. Luisa turned back to Frank, feeling sheepish but trying to look cool.

“Flowers? For me? You shouldn’t have,” Frank batted his eyes and held his hands over his heart. “I didn’t get you anything.”

Unaccustomed to flirting, Luisa grinned like a werehyena. “She’ll go straight to the Headmaster.”

“Then I did get you something. An alibi.”

*     *     *
Luisa had never been on a date, and the signs of her ragnagar’s arrival were picking up in frequency. Just the night before she had woken up in her third blood sweat of the week, and only last week she turned into Big Bird for 23 minutes. Her mother assured her this was all perfectly natural. She could look like anyone she chose once she had control of her glamour, not just beautiful women or fictional puppets.

Luisa set Frank down on the cliff he had directed her to. It overlooked the last remaining drive-in theater in the state. It was only a couple towns over but, not being accustomed to carrying another creature, Luisa was glad to give her wings a rest. Tonight’s showing was a double feature of the classic monster movies of the last century: Re-Animator and The Thing with a bonus short in between, The Call of Cthulhu. Luisa snorted at the lineup.

Frank disappeared into a bush to retrieve a stashed basket, complete with all the makings of a teen rom-com: a blanket, a thermos of hot cocoa, a Bluetooth speaker, and a picnic lunch (including a copious supply of Cheetos). Luisa sat down on the blanket, her wings splayed out in a stretch she rarely allowed herself.

“They are quite beautiful,” he nodded toward her wings as he fiddled with the Bluetooth speaker.

Luisa’s eyes narrowed. Thin and veiny like a bat’s, Luisa had never heard anyone call her wings beautiful. Powerful, impressive, or intimidating, but never beautiful. “That speaker will never pick up the Wifi at this distance,” Luisa said, nodding down to the parked cars below.

“I gave it a little boost with the help of an old Uterati spell,” he replied, handing her a mug of hot cocoa.

“It was my understanding that the Uterati had a strict ‘No Boys Allowed’ policy,” Luisa said.

“They are far more accepting than their reputation would have you believe. Not all men are happy with the status quo,” Frank purred as Luisa slurped down her cocoa.

“Accepting? I heard the last war between the sexes prompted a mini-apocalypse,” Luisa said.

Frank raised an eyebrow. “It was a simple glamour, actually. The glamour is the bread and butter of the Uterati. I know, I know, you’ll probably say it’s the trademark of the Cthulha, but legend has it the Uterati gave that ability to the Cthulha.”

Frank started to go fuzzy. Luisa would have corrected him, but her mouth felt like clay. As she struggled to keep her eyes open, Frank grew more than fuzzy and started growing tentacles.

“Until we meet in the Dreamlands,” Frank said, both his faces blurring in a smile. A common ancient Cthulhu farewell, the Dreamlands are a realm only the Cthulhu and the world’s most powerful mages can travel to in a waking state.

“Oh, hell no,” was all Luisa managed to say before the world went dark.

*     *     *
When Luisa woke, she was tethered by chains to the floor of what looked to be some abandoned airport hangar. She was chained on top of a pentagram drawn in what smelled like pig’s blood. An altar had been erected at the pinnacle of the pentagram. It was cluttered with candles and jars of colorful ingredients surrounding an unconscious Bianca, arranged like a Disney princess. Her arms and legs were fastened with thick leather belts. “What the eff?” didn’t quite seem to cover it.

“Now, now,” Frank’s voice came from behind her. “Not in mixed company.”

“Please, I spared you the uck,” Luisa said with instinctive snark. Her chains rattled as she tried to swing around to scan the room.

“You’ve been out for quite a few hours,” a female voice from the shadows said. She sounded impatient and bored. “We would have expected you to metabolize the sedative quicker.”

“There’s no reason to be fussy,” another female voice said when Luisa growled. “You won’t be doing anything you regret.”

“Yes,” Luisa seethed, “because people are kidnapped and forced to cuddle rabbits and braid hair all the time.” She tried to keep her voice unshakable and mean while she searched the edges of the shadows for an escape route. The only thing Luisa could make out beyond the circle of light was the outline of an old Cessna prop plane with flat tires over her left shoulder.

A Cthulhu emerged from the shadows. He wore black pants and no shirt, his pale, iridescent skin stretched taut over his muscles and bones like he was wearing someone else’s skin. Like Luisa and her mother he had a mane of jet black hair and a beard of tentacles, but unlike her he had two curved goat horns and a not insubstantial grove of chest hair.

“You won’t regret this. I promise,” Frank’s voice emerged from the Cthulhu’s mouth.

“Oh, Handsome Francis, how ...” Luisa stopped and thought it over, “comely you are.”

The Cthulhu are not known for their deep sense of irony, so Frank growled a quick warning as his three compatriots emerged from the shadows behind him. The women wore floor-length black robes with hoods that fell over their eyes. The only thing visible were the tips of their satin pumps and French manicured nails.

“Guess that explains your perplexing Cthulhu skills,” Luisa said to Frank.

“My mother was a Cthulha.”

“And your father?”

“Puck,” Frank said with a fiendish purr that bordered on a growl. “I was surprised you couldn’t sense it. The magnetic pull was overwhelming at times.”

Luisa scoffed, “Because nothing says romance like a chained woman.”

The hooded figure in the middle stepped forward, putting her hand on Frank’s bony shoulder. “We needed a little subterfuge to get you here, and Frank required a face with which to woo. We gave him that little glamour so he could unify the genders of the Cthulhu in exchange for help with a spell that’ll put our names in the Uterati handbook.”

“Unify?” Luisa’s eyes flashed, her tentacles shaking in impending laughter. “Don’t you mean submit?” It was well known that Cthulha were taught to flee at the first sight of a Cthulhu. Getting out from under the thumb of the Cthulhu the first time was no small feat, and it would take much more than a glamour to woo Luisa. The hooded figures appeared to glance at each other, though what they could see through their draping fabric was anyone’s guess.

“OMG, you guys,” the one on the left said as she pulled back her hood to reveal a splash of red hair and a face full of makeup. “This ambiance is just too very.”

“Put your hood back on, Patricia,” hissed the one in the middle.

“I’m with Patsy, Margaux,” the one on the right said, revealing her shining brunette locks and perfectly shaped cheekbones.

“Can we not just, for once, stick to the G-D plan, Karen? The Council will never take us seriously unless we do something right. Show them what kind of witches we can be,” Margaux said, pulling her hood off her platinum locks in a fury. All three of them glowed with the ethereal shine of a Uterati glamour, a little trick they actually stole from another unsuspecting Cthulha over a millennium ago, not the other way around. They looked to be not much older than Luisa, but you never could tell with an organization known for their chicanery.

“Hey, Three Bustkateers! After kidnapping and false imprisonment, I’m pretty sure God doesn’t give a crap if you say goddamn,” Luisa pointed out.

They turned to face Luisa, Margaux’s look of disgust doing its best to bore a hole in Luisa’s forehead. Margaux shook off her rage and plastered on a tight smile. “As I was saying before Tweedle Dummies went off book, the Uterati have been trying to gather the supplies for this spell for like a millennium. It will make us legends if we complete it. But the main ingredient is the magic of a Cthulha, and they are hard to come by. We saw a unique opportunity to succeed where the elders had failed—”

“They’ll have to promote us then!” Patsy interjected gleefully.

Sighing at the interruption, Margaux continued, “So, in exchange for corralling us a Cthulha for our spell, we taught Frank our glamour magicks so he could unify his race.”

Luisa shook her head, “Okay, one, all great love stories start with a kidnapping. Two, Prince Smarming over there isn’t expected to understand the rules of consent, but the OG feminist Uterati damn well should.” Luisa held up her arms and shook her chains. “And, three, what exactly does Bianca have to do with all this?”

“The spell also requires the blood of a rival,” Patsy informed her.

“And you thought I would be happy to eliminate mine?”

“It’s only a few drops,” Margaux said. “Can we just get on with the freaking spell already?” Margaux huffed, not used to having to explain herself.

By the time they had set up the five-pointed salted perimeter around Luisa, Frank was leaning against a concrete pillar opposite her, grinning like the depraved god of the old order he was.

“It won’t hurt,” he said as the Uterati scurried around in preparation. “I looked the spell over. It’s just a knowledge spell from some ancient Cthulhic text. The Uterati are well known for spell appropriation—”

“Hey,” Karen and Patsy said in unison.

Frank paid them no mind as he continued, “The book has spells from hoodoo blood magicks all the way to house elf cleaning fixes. They do have a couple heavy hitters, this just isn’t one of them. That’s why they only need a few drops of Bianca’s blood and not her head.”

“A small price to pay to know the secret of having it all!” Margaux said.

“Wanting less?” Luisa replied, her tentacles trilling in irritation.

“Being a man?” Frank suggested to a chorus of groans.

“What’s going on?” Bianca interrupted, trying to sit up only to discover she was chained to the altar. “Luisa, what’s going on?”

“Nobody has it all,” Luisa replied, ignoring Bianca. “Men may control the capital, but their families resent or fear them. Women are loved, but have no capital. You want something that doesn’t exist. You want a fairytale.”

The Uterati froze and stared at Luisa. Finally, Karen said, “Who doesn’t love a fairytale?”

“Luisa, who are these people?” Bianca demanded.

Luisa smirked, “Don’t you recognize your future boyfriend, Francis?”

Frank grinned with his tentacles as he walked over to Bianca, who started screaming.

“Do something!” Bianca screamed. “Rip them limb from limb like the monster you are.”

Luisa shook her chains. “A monster in chains is no monster at all.”

“I didn’t come here for a philosophy lesson, Luisa,” Bianca huffed.

“History, and you didn’t come here at all. You were brought here against your will, same as me. Why don’t you monster out then?”

“Huldufolk are gentle fey,” Bianca said in a pout.

“With crap powers,” Frank pointed out. Bianca stuck her tongue out at him.

“No talk of expulsion now, is there, Bianca?” Luisa said. Bianca opened her mouth as if about to say something, but shut it, thinking better of it.

Luisa remained silent for the remainder of their occult preparations. The same could not be said for Bianca. While fading in and out of her Huldufolk invisibility in a panic, she made all manner of threats, including the ever popular “Do you know who my father is?” and “If you don’t release me at once, I will personally call the Minister of Magic and have him bind you for the next millennium.” None had the intended effect.

Meanwhile, Patsy dipped every single one of Luisa’s tentacles in some organipolymer that smelled both of putrefaction and burning rubber and, since her tentacles were her primary sensory organs, it was all Luisa could smell. Karen then covered Bianca head to toe in the same organipolymer by pouring a bucket of it over the altar.

As the Uterati started to chant the old Cthulhic, Luisa tried to focus on the words. The organipolymer was making her lightheaded, so she only caught every other word. She did catch a few hails to the Nameless Mist and have pity great Star Mother. She tried the only thing she could think of, which was to sing the Cthulhic lullaby her mother used to sing her.

Bianca had started to glow. Luisa started rubbing her eyes as if to reboot them. Bianca sat up, doused in an unearthly bright blue light. Bianca turned to Luisa. “You make your own monster.” But she said it without opening her mouth. When she did open her mouth, a white light shot out, blinding Luisa.

*     *     *
When Luisa opened her eyes again, the world came in stills, like a strobe on reality. Video and audio weren’t syncing up. Verisimilitude was getting illogical. To her left stood Bianca and to her right was a stone-cold fox with perfectly bushy eyebrows and enchanting silver eyes. The Uterati stood on the far side of the altar, bickering like a bunch of old biddies. Frank’s fugly mug was nowhere to be seen. The hunk knelt beside her. “She’s awake,” he said, voice like honey and jasmine.

“Hey, handsome. You should call me in a few years, I hear this ragnagar is worth the wait,” Luisa said, still a little drunk on the magicks of the spell.

“She’s definitely delirious,” Bianca said, crouching down to snap her fingers in Luisa’s face. Luisa half-heartedly batted her hand away.

“What makes you say that?” the handsome stranger asked.

“Luisa’s idea of flirting involves dismemberment,” she said, standing up. The handsome stranger held his hand out to Luisa, who gingerly took it.

“Where did Frank go and how did Harry Styles get here?” Luisa asked, noticing her restraints were gone, as was that horrid organipolymer.

“I am Frank,” Harry Styles replied, an enchanting smile creeping on his lips. Frank’s new face had an ethereal quality that made it hard to look away. The previous Uterati glamour may have made him handsome, but this new spell had made him mesmerizing.

“What happened?” Luisa said.

“The spell didn’t work. Or, well, it didn’t do what they thought it did,” Frank replied. His new face grinned, like he’d been wearing this one all along. A true chameleon, Frank seemed to be at home in whatever form he took.

“Women don’t have it all, I take it?” Luisa snorted.

“No, Bianca wasn’t quite the rival she appeared to be,” Frank informed her. Bianca looked down at her feet. “Turns out Bianca might just have a warm feeling or two about you after all.”

Luisa raised an eyebrow at Bianca, who stammered, “And take a look at this.” Bianca pulled out a hand mirror and held it out to Luisa.

As Luisa snatched the small metal compact from Bianca’s outstretched arm, Frank blurted, “Our ragnagar began.”

“Our?” Luisa said. “Did you start your period, Frank?” Frank looked smug while Luisa looked into the mirror, but she didn’t see herself staring back. “Who the crap is that?” Luisa gasped. In the mirror was a human girl about her age with raven hair, alabaster skin, and piercing lavender eyes.

“That’s your glamour,” Bianca told her. “Think of her as your inner light.”

“Like your inner light?” Luisa balked, referencing the Huldufolk lightshow Bianca gave during the spell.

“What is visibility without light?” Bianca replied with a shrug. “My mom always said being a house elf had its hidden secrets.”

“Is that what bunked up the spell? Your hidden secrets?”

“It may have contributed to the result,” Frank interjected, “but the spell was never going to work the way they thought it would. Spells require precision,” he said, thumbing towards the still bickering trio, “and the three stooges over there lack a certain attention to detail. No wonder the Council put them on probation.”

Luisa raised an eyebrow, her gaze falling back on her strange new reflection. “She looks engineered,” Luisa remarked, holding the tiny mirror at different angles to get a wide-angle look at her landscape.

As she stared at her reflection, Luisa traced the edge of her face with her finger. She could feel her tentacles impeding her path, but the finger of her mirror fauna continued along her jawline with a wink. Luisa shivered, feeling like she wanted to terrorize that face in the mirror. It felt more like a Halloween costume than her inner self. Luisa snapped the mirror shut, handing it back to Bianca.

“Inner you is hot,” Frank blurted.

Luisa’s lip curled. “You’re still an asshole.”

Luisa concentrated as she forced her beauty to fade into plain features, dull eyes, blotchy caramel skin, and mousey brown hair but tentacle free. Bianca raised an eyebrow. “You would deny the gift of hotness?”

Luisa shrugged. “Adulation is an empty vessel. Besides that is not my idea of beauty. It is enough for me not to be feared. I would like to try that public I’ve heard so much about.”

Bianca nodded as she thought it over. In front of their eyes Bianca’s skin started to break out into blemishes and wine-dark birthmarks covering large portions of her body. Baffled by Bianca’s transition from hottest fey in school to awkward teenager, Frank and Luisa were rendered speechless. “Invisibility has its perks,” Bianca explained. “Especially when you can hide just the ugly bits.”

Luisa nodded. “I think we have all underestimated your Huldufolk talents.” Luisa couldn’t fault her for succumbing to the invisible visibility of beauty. No one ever came at a hottie with a mob and a pitchfork. Frank, for his part, remained a teenybopper.

They were startled by a loud crash from the altar. Margaux had swiped the various candles and bowls and buckets of organipolymer onto the floor with a howl, while the Uterati continued to bicker and point pristinely manicured nails at each other. Luisa went past Frank toward the altar. Karen yelped at the sight of Luisa heading straight for them and Margaux dropped the spell book. Luisa swooped it up and opened the book to the marked page. She examined the book while the Uterati tried to distance themselves from the Cthulha without startling her. Luisa looked up in a growl.

“I am not some wild cat. I will chase you no matter your exit strategy.”

They froze.

“You mistranslated the Cthulhic,” Luisa said, tossing the book back to Margaux. “It called for the blood of my worst enemy, not my rival. If you’d bothered to ask, I would have told you I fear nothing from Bianca. Perhaps you ought not meddle in magicks outside your skill.”

“Did you know this would happen?” Margaux demanded of Frank.

“I mean, I knew it wouldn’t work as you intended. A change in ingredients is a roll of the dice,” he shrugged. “But I’m a gambling man myself, so I saw no personal benefit in altering your course.”

Luisa’s face went cold and before he could react, Luisa sped over and popped him one in the nose. “You had no idea what would happen, you ass. Bianca and I could have been killed.”

“The danger of that was acceptable,” he said from the ground, his hand covering a bloody nose. “And the result was more than I could have ever hoped. I’ll be hailed by my brethren for bringing the ragnagar back to the Cthulhu.”

“There are more of you?” Luisa simulated a deep gag.

Frank rolled his eyes at her choking dramatics. “We went into hiding, Luisa, not the grave.”

“What a crock,” Margaux gaped. “The Council will never take us seriously now.”

“Spells work in mysterious ways,” Patsy said. “Sometimes they know better than us what we need.”

Margaux gave her the evil eye to end all evil eyes, known to raze cities, destroy societies, feed the apocalypse. Along with their long tradition of powerful Uterati magicks, they were an organization also known for their silent treatments.

“Next time just ask,” Luisa said. “You’d save yourself a lot of heartache.”

“Please,” Margaux scoffed, motioning her hand up and down Luisa’s human form, “you got the good end of the deal. We’re the ones who are going to have to answer to the Uterati Council if they ever find out about this little disaster. Quit your bitching.”

“Take care not to mistake my mercy for weakness,” Luisa said with a growl. “I see any of you again, there isn’t a spell throughout eternity that could save you from my wrath.”

“Once a monster always a monster, eh?” Frank said, looking impressed.

“Monstrosity is only skin deep,” Luisa replied, unimpressed. “In the end, a monster is who you make them.”

“Come on, Luisa,” Frank said with an arrogant grin that misunderstood the sentiment. “I’ll show you the way out.”

“No thanks, Weinstein. We can make our own way out.”

“We?” Bianca asked, batting her eyes.

Luisa held her hand out, which Bianca took with a smile. Luisa picked Bianca up, causing her cheeks to redden. Luisa hovered a foot in the air as the dust swirled around the swing of her wings. Bianca held up her hand and snapped her fingers for dramatic effect as she turned them both invisible.

“Let’s go get some Cheetos,” Bianca’s disembodied voice said. “My treat.”

Luisa laughed and said to Frank, “See you in the Dreamlands, monster.”

The sound of her beating wings shot straight up before tearing through the flimsy aluminum hangar roof.